Deadshot (Arrowverse)
NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Deadshot from the Arrowverse. The mainstream version can be found here: Deadshot. Floyd Lawton, also known by his assassin name Deadshot, is an assassin and expert marksman, most infamous for never missing (unless on purpose). He is a supporting antagonist in Season 1 of Arrow and anti-hero in Seasons 2 and 3 and a member of Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad. Biography History At some point between 2010 and 2012, Deadshot was hired by H.I.V.E. to kill Andy Diggle. Though it was believed he had succeeded, even by him, H.I.V.E. had secretly replaced Deadshot's bullets to non-lethals in order to fake Andy's death, a fact Deadshot never became aware of. Season 1 Deadshot was first seen in "Lone Gunmen" where he killed James Holder and injured Oliver Queen. Upon finding out the bullet was poisoned with curare, Oliver used the knowledge to find an assassin familiar with the poison: Deadshot. Oliver then tracked down Deadshot with aid from the Bratva to an apartment he had used before under his true name Floyd Lawton. There they confronted each other, only for Lawton to flee the scene. Later at the Unidac auction, Deadshot shot a bullet to kill Walter Steele, who was pushed out of the bullet's path by Sergeant Quentin. Oliver and Deadshot later had another confrontation ending in Oliver shooting an arrow through Deadshot's right eye, knocking him unconsciously to the ground. When he regained consciousness, an elderly homeless man approached him. Deadshot wrenched the arrow from his eye and stabbed the old man with it. As he staggered out of the building, he was kidnapped by a group of men in a van after losing consciousness again, before he could be taken by the police. In a hospital room, Floyd woke to find his eye having been operated on. Before his brain could be examined, under the instructions of an unidentified man, he broke out of his restraints and walked out. Two months later, Deadshot appeared in Blüdhaven and approached a man who apparently had a job for him, but was rejected due to having only one fully working eye. In "Dead to Rights", three months following, Floyd had retired to "drink and smoke his life away". However, when China White approached him with an eye scope to replace his eye, asking him to kill Malcolm Merlyn, Floyd agreed to come out of retirement. The two formed a plan to kill Malcolm by forcing him outside his office building, so Deadshot could kill him. However, Malcolm and his son, Tommy, headed to a safe room in Malcolm's office. Deadshot managed to destroy the bullet-proof windows by firing a grenade from a launcher at them and was able to shoot Malcolm several times. Malcolm became poisoned by the curare toxin in the bullets and Deadshot and China was able to escape. Malcolm survived, however, after Tommy gave his father a blood transfusion. In "Home Invasion", Deadshot returned to Starling City for a potential contract which in reality was a trap A.R.G.U.S was setting to capture him with. When he was going to meet with the potential contractor (Lyla Michaels), he had somehow learned what their plans were and he plans to kill the A.R.G.U.S agent setting the trap while sitting sniper. He killed three of the agents and when he moved to kill Lyla, John showed up and saved Lyla's life. When Deadshot (now sporting an eyepatch instead of his scope) was on his way out, John tried to stop him but Floyd easily disarmed him and held two guns on John, who said he was going kill him for what he did to Andy. Floyd replied, "I would kill you right now, but there's no one paying me". Whilst showing him his tattoo of Andy's name and told him that it was best that he remembered that he had a place just next to his brother's name and then he punched John in the head with a gun and left the building. Season 2 In "Keep Your Enemies Closer", he is found to have been captured in Russia and taken to a gulag. It is revealed that Lyla Michaels was tracking Deadshot for John Diggle but was taken captive there. Lawton meets Diggle again while in solitary. He kills John's contact inside the prison with an icicle and says he would help find Lyla if John gets him out too. After they find Lyla, Diggle helps Lawton out of the prison. They escape in a van with Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, and Anatoly Knyazev. Out of honor, John allows him to walk free instead of just shooting him. When asked, Lawton tells Diggle that he was contracted to kill Andy by H.I.V.E. In "Suicide Squad", Lawton and a few members of the Suicide Squad are temporarily released from imprisonment by A.R.G.U.S. to participate in a mission in Markovia. He would attempt a fake assassination in order for Diggle to gain trust from Gholem Qadir. During a Humanitarian Benefit which Diggle was invited to, Lawton would pose as Diggle after Diggle bypassed the security with Qadir. Lawton would look for the nerve agent only to discover that it was much larger than expected. After Lawton learns that it was planned for him to be killed along with the destruction of the nerve agent, he decides to stay before being reminded of his daughter, Zoe by John Diggle. Lawton would later realize the drone that was set to destroy the nerve agent was locked onto a chip inside his eye. Lyla would cut the chip out with Ben Turner's claws. After they return to A.R.G.U.S., Amanda Waller decides to place the chip back in the spine of the Suicide Squad members. In "Unthinkable", Lawton is broken out of imprisonment by John Diggle and Lyla Michaels to stop Amanda Waller. After being instructed to take no kill shots, Lawton is armed and holds up the control room of A.R.G.U.S. with other members of the Suicide Squad in order to stop Waller from leveling Starling City with a drone attack. Further work with the Suicide Squad In late 2014, Deadshot was working as part of the Suicide Squad, killing members of the extremist sect Onslaught in the Republic of Kasnia along with Bronze Tiger. The two were later training in the A.R.G.U.S. headquarters, taking out ten men in 7 seconds. Soon afterward, he, Tiger, Diggle, and Ravan Nassar were deployed to Kahndaq to take down Onslaught. When they arrived at an Onslaught camp, Deadshot took up his trademark sniper position, killing an Onslaught member as he was about to execute hostages, providing a distraction for Tiger and Diggle to begin killing other members. After Nassar blew up an Onslaught truck, Deadshot and the rest fo the group found a survivor to bring them to Khem-Adam. Lawton and Turner tortured the survivor, but Diggle managed to convince the survivor to tell the Squad the location of Khem-Adam's lair. They arrived there and freed the girls, killing several Onslaught agents along the way. Lawton picked up Turner's body after Khem-Adam killed him and carried him out to the waiting A.R.G.U.S. helicopter, insisting that he be buried in his home country. Personality Lawton's motivation as a sniper is a money. He is driven by money - so much so that he didn't kill John Diggle only because he sees him as a potential source of income later since no one has yet paid him to fulfill the task. It was later revealed his obsession with money was because it's his only way to provide money for his daughter Zoey, who he spends most of the money via a blind trust. He has several pictures of her in his cell at A.R.G.U.S. He will kill anyone who gets between him and his target(s); when Floyd found out that A.R.G.U.S. set a trap for him, he killed three A.R.G.U.S. agents, despite the fact that they were not getting in his way between him and his target(s). However, he does show remarkable bravery and character by remaining underground when Waller orders him to do so, despite his knowledge of an impending drone strike. It is possible that he envies John Diggle's code of ethics and honor, suggesting that he wasn't always borderline sociopathic, this was merely a personality adjustment that eventually consumed him. This is shown in "Suicide Squad" when he says that it was the way he wanted to die, doing something honorable. Lawton is also shown to be a man of habit. This was demonstrated when he checked into the same hotel and the same room he stayed the other times he was in Starling City, enabling Oliver to track him down with just the information of the information provided to him from the Bratva the last time he was in Starling City from that encounter. Lawton is shown to have developed an attachment to his comrades. When Ben Turner was killed, he took the liberty of burying him in his home country to honor his fallen comrade. Abilities *'The peak of human physical condition': Floyd is strong enough to go toe-to-toe with John Diggle and come out on top. *'Master marksman': Floyd is considered to be the world's deadliest marksman and highly skilled with many ranged weapons. This is partially supported by his proficiency with his eye scope. Floyd's marksman skills are so great, he is said to never miss his mark, earning him the nickname Deadshot from Interpol. *'Expert hand-to-hand combatant/Martial artist': Floyd has shown himself to be a capable hand-to-hand combatant and martial artist. He was able to take on John with relative ease and even overpowered him in their confrontation. Equipment *'Laser eye patch': One of Floyd's signature trademarks was the high-tech laser sighted eye-patch that he wears over his right eye to make up for the damage done to it. This eye-patch augments his already amazing marksman skills, and when combined with his sniper rifle's scope, makes it almost impossible for him to miss his target. *'Cybernetic eye patch': This cybernetic eye-patch was given to Floyd by China White to replace his damaged eye after it was seriously injured by The Arrow. It was later upgraded to act as a sniper rifle scope and also possesses thermal imaging. A.R.G.U.S. agents can remotely access the eye-patch to use it as a camera, seeing what Lawton does. *'Wrist turrets': Floyd possessed two wrist turrets, one on each wrist which can emit continuous gunshots in rapid fire. *'Sniper rifle': One of Floyd's weapons of choice include a long-range sniper rifle with curare-laced bullets. *'Grenade Launcher': Floyd used this weapon in order to penetrate Malcolm Merlyn's bulletproof glass. *'Deadshot suit': Floyd wears a suit as his villain alter-ego, Deadshot, when he is out on an assignment. The first incarnation of the suit was little more than a dark suit and jacket. The second and current incarnation of the suit is far better equipped, including an armored chest piece, fully loaded Bandoleer and various magazines of ammunition. *'Curare': Lawton laces all his bullets with curare to exponentially increase the chance his victims die as long as the bullet has made contact with the victim's bloodstream, even if the bullets barely graze the victim or if the victim is wearing body armor. Appearances Trivia *Deadshot is one of the more popular DC comics supervillains, having featured in several animated adaptations, and video games, and is a prominent member of the Suicide Squad, a team of convicted felons that frequently perform missions on behalf of the government. This incarnation, however, does not appear to have the "silver spoon" background of his comics counterpart. In the comics, he is originally and primarily a Batman villain, although, like the Joker, he has proven incapable of taking the kill shot on Bruce Wayne when he has it. *There are talks for a Suicide Squad TV series set in the Arrow-verse in which Deadshot is a supporting protagonist. It's neither been confirmed nor denied that the show will be made. It seems unlikely, given that there is a Suicide Squad movie coming in 2016. *In "Dead to Rights", Floyd Lawton appears in Blüdhaven, the city he has chosen for his "retirement". In the comics, Blüdhaven is Nightwing's city, and during the episode, Guillermo Barrera appears. He's a criminal mainly operating in Blüdhaven, with Nightwing as his nemesis. *In "The Huntress Returns", John Diggle is reading an article about Deadshot suspected killing the Bialyan president. Bialya happens to be a prominent country in the DC mythos. *Deadshot getting tattoos with the names of his victims is similar to Victor Zsasz, a villain from the Batman series who carves a tally mark into his body every time he kills someone. *Many of Deadshot's tattoos are references to in-series characters, extended DCU characters, and Behind-the-Scenes crew members. They include "Glen Winter" (series director), "Andrew Diggle" (Diggle's brother and also the writer of "Green Arrow: Year One" for DC Comics) , and "Joseph Cray" (a reference to Adam Cray, who takes up the mantle of The Atom after Ray Palmer and joins the Suicide Squad in the comics). *Deadshot's Earth 2 counterpart appears in "Welcome to Earth-2" of The Flash. In this reality, Floyd Lawton is a clumsy and insecure detective at the CCPD and Iris' partner. He is nicknamed "Deadshot" because, on this Earth, he has extremely bad aim, bad enough to miss an entire round of shots at Reverb from blank space. 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